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William Penn 



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T H I : 



FRIEND OF CATHOLICS. 



BY 



MARTIN I. J. GRIFFIN, 

i'lKSI V(i i:-ri;KSIIlKN-l' (IF TIIK A.MEinCAN CaTHOMi; lIlSTDKHAl. .So( lIvTV nV 1 ' I) I I.Al ii;i,l'H I A , 
MKMliKi: (IF THK HlSTOltlCAL SOCIFTY OF I'KNNSY I.VANI A. 

<'ui{Ki:!«i'(iNn!N(; MKMnEi: of the Bikfai.o Histokuai, Si» ikty, 
AM> OF Tin; I,i.vn.i:as Soi iety of 1-an<astei:. Pa. 



/\<(u/ before the Friends' Eveuing Hour Club of (Jernnviknoi. Deeeniber 

j/h, /SSj^. and before the Ameriean Catholie Hisiorieal Soeiety 

on February ist, 1886. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
I'UESS OF THE I.e. U. r. .)()ri!XAJ., 

• 1 S 8 (). 



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William Penn, 



THE FRIEND OF CATHOLICS. 



The following Historical Paper was 
read before the Friends' Evening Hour 
Club of Germantown, on Dec. 7th, 1885, 
and before the American Catholic Histo- 
rical Society of Philadelphia, on Feb. 
1st, 1886. 

The purpose of our American Catho- 
lic Historical Society of Philadelphia, is 
amply disclosed by its title. 

Not only is our concern all that relates 
to our Church in this country, but in 
an especial manner all that relates to the 
history of tlie Church in our own city is 
of first importance, and to that has 
the work of the Society chiefly been 
devoted. 

Organized as we are to collect and pre- 
serve all that will tell the story of the 
founding and expanding of the Church 
here, it seems fitting that on our first 
manifestation of the work of the Society 
it would best accord with the object de- 
clared 'especially' that of the Society — 
the elucidation and preservation of the 
history of the Church in Philadelphia— 
if I would speak a word in vindication 
of the memory of William Penn, the 
Founder of our State- and defend him 
from the aspersions cast upon his charac- 
ter as a friend of Religious Toleration. 

FOUNDATION OF PENXSYLYANIA, 

If the history of our Faith in Pliiladel- 
phia is ever to be written or its develop- 
ment aided by our Society, surely the 
first point of historical inquiry and 



patient and conscientious research must 
be the principles on which our State was 
founded, and how these principles and 
the professions according therewith were 
applied to the early Catholic settlers in 
the colony Penn established. 

Who should be lenient in judgment, 
tolerant in opinion and disposed to fair 
examination, if not Catholics, who 
above all others have suffered most re- 
proach because the enemies of the Church 
have not examined into the truth of the 
statements alleged against Her. 

Who should not idly speak derogatory 
of the character or memory of any man 
unless tlie truth of history demand, and 
then judging only by the standard of the 
times in which the actor was a public 
character? 

Yet, in this have Catholic writers of- 
fended. Tliey have done injustice to 
"William Penn as the friend of Religious 
Liberty. He is charged with denying 
to Catholics that Liberty of Conscience 
which he proclaimed as the right of all 
who came within the lines of his "Holy 
'Experiment." 

Thus tlie minds of our people have 
been misled, and worse, our children 
are being taught that Penn and his people 
were bitterly hostile to our forefathers 
in the faith in our city. This, too, in 
(/atholic histories, because our children 
cannot use other histories without being 
kept in ignorance of the deeds of Cath- 
olics in the settlement and development 



ynmam renn^ 



ef our country, and in gaining its Inde- 
pendence. 

If mine be the first words of vindica- 
tion of the founder of my native city, 
and such as show him to have been in 
act as in name — a Friend, they are so 
only because serious and patient and 
conscientious examination has convinced 
me that injustice has been done; not 
censurable injustice, because unknow- 
ingly, though carelessly done. Ii( 

Our whole early history is but a ro- 
mance, and rarely upon facts. The very 
first alleged fact— that in 1G86— just 
200 years ago, there was a Catholic 
priest resident in Piiiladelphia, is not 
true and the Catholic writer who first 
started that historical tale, is censurable 
because he perverted the fact upon 
which he built a story that has its life 
still longer lengthened as it appears in | 
the recently issued Life of Bishop Neu- 1 
inann. i 

THE TREVALENT NOTION OF PENN'S 
CHARACTER. A 

"VVe Catholics regard William Penn as 
a religious enthusiast, who contended 
for Religious toleration or Liberty when 
he was oppressed, and when given the 
opportunity to establish a colony, pro- ! 
claimed as the corner-stone of its struct- 
ure the principles which lie had advoca- 
ted when oppressed for conscience sake. 
While policy demanded that none should 
be by declaration "excepted" from the 
benefits of the principles he proclaimed, 
yet he was one loath to have religious 
liberty construed to cover Roman 
Catholics, or "Papists;" as we were gen- 
erally called in those days. i 

Though not excluding Catholics, we 
Catholics believe that we were not de- 
sired by Penn, that he spoke dispar- 
agingly of us for publicly exercising the 
rites of our Church, that liis course 
and words influenced his followers, and 
that they thus made our position an un- 
easy one in the Province. 

In fact, the Catholic opinion regarding 
Penn is best expressed in the words of 
Bishop Gilmour, the present respected 
Bishop of Cleveland, who, in a pubjic 



discourse in 1880, said: "Even the gentle 
Penn had his fling at the Catholics." — 
[The Debt America owes to the Catho- 
licity, page 8.1 

It is against this stain on Penn that I 
seek to show that there is no justification 
for any hesitation on the part of Catlio- 
lics to express admiration of the Founder 
of Pennsylvania, nor any reason why liis 
followers, "tlie people called Quakers," 
to use the old time words, should not be 
regarded especially as Friends. 
I But how did the Catholic misjudgment 
of Penn's ciiaracter arise? From Wat- 
son, the annalist of Philadelphia. He 
relates tliat Penn wrote to Logan, in 
July, 1708, saying : "Here is a complaint 
against your Government that you suffer 
public Mass in a scandalous manner. 
Pray send the matter of fact, for ill use 
is made of it against us here." 

Then, continues Watson: "And in a 
subsequent letter he returns to it in 
these terms: "It has become a reproach 
to me here, with the officers of the Crown, 
that you have suffered the scandal of the 
Mass to be publicly celebrated." 

This, related by a Protestant, is the 
basis of the Catholic opinion concerning 
Penn. 

The first extract is well founded. It 
appears in "The Penn and Loean Corres- 
pondence." Thougii dated 7th month 
29th, 1708, AVatson and tlie Catholic 
writers give the date as July 29th, for- 
geting that in 1708 September was the 
seventh month. This letter was sent by 
the hand of the new Governor— Gookin 
— by Penn to James Logan, his confi- 
dential secretary and friend. It speaks 
generally of such affairs relating to the 
young colony as were of concern at the 
time, and such instructions as Penn 
might be expected to give by the new 
Lieutenant-Governor whom he was 
sending to the Province. 

Recall Penn's troubles from 1692. Re- 
member, all the settlers were not Quak- 
ers. Remember his financial difficulties, 
the people's ingratitude, the hostility of 
"the hot Church party," and the efforts 
to disposess him of his proprietary rights 
or to prevent him from disposing of them 



the I' r lend of Uaihoiics. 



^=w 



to the Crown, Remember that Mass 
was not allowed to be publicly celebrated 
in England; that his enemies invented 
lies, perverted facts, and misrepresented 
circumstances in order to obtain the mas- 
tery of him. The malcontents here re- 
ported everything to London; and Penn 
simply informed Logan: "Here is a com- 
plaint against your Government, that 
you suffer public Mass in a scandalous 
manner." Remember that in England 
tlie public exercise of the Catholic re- 
ligion was not permitted. In all her 
colonies Catholics were "excepted" from 
the declaration that liberty of conscience 
should prevail; and even in Catholic 
founded Maryland Mass was not public- 
ly allowed even in Father Andrew 
White's time, and was prohibited by 
statute in 1692. 

Pennsylvania alone did not "except" 
Catholics and her statute pages contains 
no prohibition of the public exercises of 
their religion. 

But let us consider "the scandal of the 
Mass" charge. It is this alleged extract 
that I attack. I deny its authenticity. 
It has got into our Catholic histories 
from Watson, because about 30 years ago 
Henry de Courcy, a French Catholic 
journalist making a tour of America, 
wrote sketches of Catholicity in the 
United States for his paper; these were 
translated and published under the title 
History of the Catholic Church in the 
United States. 

I deny the existence of "the Scandal of 
the Mass" (alleged) extract. It is not in 
the "Penn and Logan Correspondence." 
I have searched innumerable books for it, 
have examined a number of authorities, 
questioned those who have repeated the 
statement, and sought diligently, anx- 
iously and faithfully to discover if Penn 
ever used the language. I can get no 
other or any further back than Watson. 
My position might rest here when the 
evidence upon wliich Penn has been 
charged with "having his tling at Catho- 
lics" is not verified nor discoverable. 
Proof must be produced before condem- 
nation is pronounced. No indefinite 
"subsequent letter" is evidence. Proof, 



if it existed in Watson's time, is availa- 
ble now, and even more so in these days 
of historical research. 

But let us examine the probability of 
any such language having been used. 
Even if it had, I claim that it is not a 
just judgment to take one sentence from 
a private official letter and hold it as 
destructive of a life-time of professions 
and practices totally at variance with 
the spirit which we Catholics might im- 
pute to one who would call the most 
consoling, the most efficacious and most 
cherished practice and belief of our faith 
— the scandal of the Mass— even though 
these were but the words in every day 
use. But let us see how Penn regarded 
Catholics. 

From King Charles II. Penn received 
a grant of this land. He undertook to 
settle it upon a principle first practiced 
in our country by a Catholic, Lord Bal- 
timore—Religious Liberty. "For the 
matter of liberty and privileges I propose 
that which is extraordinary," wrote 
Penn to Turner, Sharp and Robert, April 
15th, 1681, as cited in Janney''s Life. 

It was "extraordinary" to grant relig- 
ious liberty in any of the Colonies to 
"Papists and Quakers." Everywhere 
they were the banned and hunted people, 
and he who prayed that "the Lord guide 
me by His wisdom and preserve me to 
honor His name and serve His truth and 
His people, that an example maybe set 
up to the nations," would be most likely 
not to do ill to those who were fellows 
with him in suffering, who with him 
were at home and in the new land perse- 
cuted and oppressed for conscience sake. 
But mere Toleration would not satisfy 
Penn. He made Religious Liberty a right. 
All know of the penal laws of England 
against Catholics. They were used to 
oppress Quakers. He protested against 
this, but urged that the blow that he de- 
sired turned from his people should not 
fall upon others. 

Penn was "a Protestant and a strict 
one too," as he declared. He believed 
not the doctrines of "the Church of 
Rome. " As a youth at Oxford he had torn 
the surplice from a fellow student be- 



William Penriy 



cause "it was a relic and a symbol of 
that Church." 

For his religious principles he had suf- 
fered inoprisonment and under laws de- 
signed to oppress Catholics. Tlie law of 
158-2, which imposed on "Papists" a hue 
of S20 a month for absence from the £s- 
tablislied Church, and the law of 1()U5 
giving the option to the Sovereign of 
accepting tliis sum or all the personal 
and two-tliirds of the real estate of the 
aciuised, were used by the enemies of the 
"Quakers" to oppress them. 

When the Parliament of 1678 was con- 
sidering the laws against "Popery," it 
was proposed to insert an oath by which 
the penalty could be avoided. The 
Friends objected to the oath. They 
wished their word, subject to the penalty 
of perjury, to be taken. On the 22nd of 
January, 1678, Penn appeared before a 
committee of Parliament in defense of 
the position of his people. His remarks 
give the key to his course towards Cath- 
olics and deserve attention therefor? 

"Tliat wliich givetli me more than 
ordinary right to speak at this time and 
place is the great abuse that I have re- 
ceived above any other of my profession 
for a long time. I have not only been 
supposed a Papist, but a seminary, a 
Jesuit, an emissary of Rome and in pay 
of the Pope, a man dedicating my en- 
deavors to the interest and advancement 
of that party. Nor hath this been the 
report of the rabble, but the jealousy 
and insinuations of persons otherwise 
sober and discreet. Nay, some zealous 
for the Protestant cause have been so far 
gone in this mistake as not only to think 
ill of us and to decline our conversation, 
but to take courage to themselves to 
prescribe us as a sort of concealed Papist. 
All laws have been let loose upon us, as 
if the design were not to reform but to 
destroy us, and tliat not for what we are, 
but for what we are not. I would not 
be mistaken. 

"I am far from thinking that Papists 
should be whipped for their consciences, 
because I exclaim against tlie injustice of 
whipping Quakers for Papists. No, for 
the hand pretended to be lifted up 



against them hath, I know not by what 
discretion, lit heavily upon us, and we 
comi»lain, yet we do not mean that any 
should take a fresh aim at tiiem or that 
tiiey must come in our room. AVe must 
give tlie liberty we ask, and cannot be 
false to our principles, tiiough it were to 
relieve ourselves, for we have good will 
to all men and would have none to suffer 
for a truly sober and conscientious dis- 
sent on any hand." 

To the charge that he was a Papists, he 
replied: [Letter to Wm. Popple, Oct. 
20, 1688.] 

"If the asserting of an impartial liber- 
ty of conscience, if doing to others as we 
would be done by, and an open avowing j 
and a steady practising of these things 
at all times and to all parties, will justly 
lay a man under the reflection of being 
a Jesuit or Papist of any sort, 1 must 
not only submit to the character, but 
embrace it too." 

To Archbishop Tillotson, who report- 
ed him "a Papist, perhaps a Jesuit," he 
wrote: "I am a Catholic, though not a 
Roman. I have bowels for mankind, 
and dare not deny others what I crave 
for myself. I mean liberty for the exer- 
cise of my religion, thinking faith, piety 
and providence a better security than 
force, and tliat if truth cannot prevail 
with her own weapons, all others will 

fail her I am no Roman Catholic 

but a Christian whose creed is the Scrip- 
tare." ["Hazard's Register," Vol. ii. pp. 
29-30.] Two principles of religion I ab- 
hor: Obedience upon authority without 
conviction: Destroying them that differ 
from me for God's sake. — Wm. Penn to 
Abp. Tillotson. [tVju?.] 

But that Penn could not object to the 
public celebration of Mass, take his tes- 
timony from his "Persuasion to Modera- 
tion:" 

"By liberty of conscience I mean a free 
and open profession and exercise of one's 
duty to God, especially in worship." 
[Janney's Penn, p. 280, 2d Ed. 1882.] 

He cites instances of Catholics grant- 
ing toleration, and asks, "Who should 
give liberty of conscience like the Prince 
that wanted it ?" And again^he repeats 



tneFrienaof Catlioucs. 



even more plainly, "By liberty of con- 
science I mean a free and open profes- 
sion of that duty." 

That was the "cause I have with all 
hujaility undertaken to place against the 
prejudices of the times," said he, and 
shall I, a Catholic, withhold words of 
justice fi'om him who pleaded that my 
forefather? in the faith, were entitled 
beyond all human laws, to enjoy "the 
free and open profession" of their faith 
and practices of their religion? No. 

He suffered for his creed and he suffer- 
ed under laws intended to crush "■Pop- 
ery," and he had to be charged with be- 
ing a Papist to even attempt to justify 
the wrong against him. His principles 
and his sufferings for them tauglit him 
"not to vex men for their belief and 
modest practice of their faith with res- 
pect to the other world into which prov- 
ince and sovereignty temporal power 
reaches not from its very nature and 
end." 

Such were Penn's professions before 
the King of England granted him this 
land. How did he act then ? 
' The Frame of Government granted 
Religious Liberty. Tlie Great Law 
passed at Cliester December 10, 1682, also 
proclaimed it. 

"The Great Law declares: All persons 
livihg in this Province . . . shall in no 
way be molested or prejudiced in their 
religious persuasion or practice or in 
matters of faith or worsliip." 

Penn, in A Further Account of the 
Province of Pennsylvania and its Improve- 
ments, says "of the Government" — "We 
aim at duty to the King, the Preserva- 
tion of Right to all, the Suppression of 
Vice and Encouragement of Virtue and 
Arts with Liberty to all People to Worship 
Almighty God according to their Faith and 
Persuasion.''^ Pa. Mag. Apr. 1885, p. 79. 

Benjamin Furley, Penn's agent at 
Rotterdam in Explanation concerning the 
establishment .>f Pennsylvania, issued Mar. 
6, 1684, says: 

And in order that each may enjoy that 
liberty of conscience, which is a natural 
right belonging to all men, and wl)ich is 
so comformable to the genius and charac- 



ter of peaceable people and friends of re- 
pose, it is established firmly, not only that 
no one be forced to assist in any public 
exercise of religion, but also full power 
is given to each to make freely the public 
exercise of liis own without meeting with 
any trouble or interference of any kind; 
provided that he profess to believe in one 
eternal God all powerful who is the Crea- 
tor, Pa'eserver, and Governor of the 
world, and that he fulfil all the duties of 
civil society which he is bound to per- 
form towards his fellow citizens." 

Note that Penn always speaks of the 
right to practise one's religion as well as 
to profess it. One is naturally contained 
in the other, but in Penn's day it v\as 
not the profession, but the practices of his 
creed and that of the Catholics that were 
punished. It was the Mass that was 
specially objectionable. As regards Cath- 
olics, Protestant opinion was aptly sum- 
marized by Cromwell's order that liberty 
of conscience should prevail in Ireland, 
but no Mass. So that if Penn really 
meant anything just or wise concerning 
Catholics and liberty of conscience, he 
meant above all things else concerning 
them that Mass should be celebrated in 
his colony. And history proves it so. 

There were Catholics in Philadelpliia. 
as early as 168G, and one Peter Debuc, 
who died in 1693, whose will I have ex- 
amined, bequeathed £50 to Father 
Smith— supposed to an alias for Fatiier 
Harrison, or Harvey, as investigation 
may show. Now, if half a dozen Catho- 
lics could be gatliered together in the 
new city during this time, tiiey surely 
had Mass celebrated by the Jesuit who 
visited them when journeying from 
Maryland to New Y-ork, or on his return. 

After 1692, until the Revolutionary 
War, nowhere else in the British Prov- 
inces was Mass allowed to be publicly 
celebrated but in Piiiladelphia— or else- 
wliere in Pennsylvania. Even in Mary- 
land, founded as it had been by Catholics 
who welcomed all. Catholics were, as 
soon as Protestants got the power, op- 
pressed for their religion, and doubly 
taxed, and the public exercise of their 
religion prohibited. Mass could only be 



l\'i((i(jpm Fenn^ 



said in one of the private rooms of the 
manors of the well-to-do Catholics. 

Penn declared, "the first fundamental 
of the government of my Province to be, 
that everyone should have and enjoy the 
free possession of liis faith and the exer- 
cises of worship, in such way and man- 
ner as every such person shall in con- 
science believe most acceptable to God, 
and so long as sucli person usetli not his 
Christian liberty to licentiousness or the 
destruction of others he shall be protect- 
ed in the enjoyment of the aforesaid 
Ciiristian liberty by the civil magistrate." 
So tlie few Catholics who were here in 
Penn's time were visited by Priests. 
They made no special display; they kept 
to themselves and quietly performed 
their religious duties. 

But I judge that at Christmas or New 
Year's 1707-8, the few who were here made 
special manifestation of their faith on the 
occasion of two converts being received 
into the Cliurch. Now, reception into 
the Catholic Church implies long and 
serious consideration and instruction, 
and in this case means that priests had 
been here frequently, were publicly known 
and moved among the citizens; else how 
did one of such prominence as Lionel 
Britton come to seek admission to the 
Catholic Church, whose members must 
have been very few in 1708, as the high- 
est estimate made of the Catliolics at the 
building of St Joseph's Chapel in 1732 is 
forty! 

It was this public ceremony of the re- 
ception of tlie two converts that led Rev. 
John Talbot, afterwards the first Episco- 
pal Bishop (by non-juring consecration) 
to write to tlie secretary of the London 
Society for tlie Propagating of the Gospel 
on January 10, 1708; "Arise, O Lord 
Jesus Clirist, and lielp us and deliver us 
for thine honor! . . . Tliere's an Inde- 
pendency at Elizabethtown, Anabaptism 
at Burlington, and the Popish Mass in 
Philadelphia. I thouglit tliat the Quakers 
would be the first to let it in, particularly 
Mr, Penn, for if he has any religion 'tis 
that. But thus to tolerate all without 
control is to have none at all." This is 



the earliest direct evidence of the cele- 
bration of Mass in Philadelphia. 

On February 14, Talbot wrote to Rev. 
George Keith: "1 saw Mr. Bradford in 
New York. He tells me that Mass is set 
up and read publically in Piiiladt'lphia, 
and several people are tur!ied to it amongst 
wiiicii Lionel Brittin, the church warden, 
is one, and his son is another. 1 thouglit 
that Popery would come in amongst 
Friends, the Quakers, as soon as any 
way." [From Doc. Ilis. of P. E. Cliurch 
of U. S. Church Documents. Conn. Vol. 
I, p. 37. Jas. Pott, publisher, 1803.] 

It was this Mass and reception of con- 
verts that the Episcopalians so promptly 
reported to London. Penn was tiiere 
harras?ed with debt and family troubles 
and battling with "The Hot Church 
Party" for the retention of his proprietary 
interest. His enemies and the enemies 
of his followers were pressing against him 
that while neither England nor any of 
the American Colonies gave toleration to 
Catholics, in Pennsylvania they were not 
only allowed to live, but were doing an 
act unlawful in England— publicly cele- 
brating the Mass and receiving converts. 
Penn simply wrote to Logan to send a 
true account of the affair. Unfortunately 
that account, if sent, has not come to us. 

Catholics liave failed to remember that 
though Penn was the Founder, and, with 
the exception of a brief time, the Gover- 
nor of the Province, he was not always 
the controller of its affairs. Nor were 
his own people always able to direct 
affairs as lie and they desired. Not only 
had he and they personal and linancial 
difficulties to contend against, but re- 
ligious controversies and Quaker dissen- 
tions thwarted many good works. 

But as concerns our questi(;n, Penn 
and his followers had tiie Established 
Church party to contend with. They 
strove to have his rights taken from him 
in order to have the Church of England 
established. 

Religious controversies were rife during 
r^ord Cornbury's time, and others than 
Catholics, as few as they were, suffered 
from the attempts to have the Established 
Church in England made the Church of 



1^ 



T/!(5 J^Hsna oj~vamoii(is. 



the Province; for Rev. Francis Makemie, 
Founder of Presbyterianism in America, 
on March 28, 1707, wrote to Rev. Benj. 
Colman: "The penal laws are invading 
our American sanctuary without the 
least regard to the Toleration Act, which 
should justly alarm us all." [Pa. Mag., 
No. 2. vol. V. 1881, p. 224.] 

Such were Penu's principles, profes- 
sions and acts. 

How did his followers act? Did they 
do as he proclaimed? 

Let us take the "History of the United 
States," one of Sadlier's Excelsior Series 
of Catholic School Books. 

This history has been prepared because 
tlie histories in the Public Schools are "a 
conspiracy against truth," as regards 
Catholics and their doings in this country. 
Yet it coniains the following: 

"Though William Penn granted re- 
ligious toleration througliout his own 
colony, still in maintaining it towards 
Catholics he was bitterly opposed by his 
own people." 

So while Penn is not saddled with the 
charge of the big histories, the odium is 
now placed on his followers. 

A few' sentences prior the people are 
described as "emigrants, mainly Quak- 
ers." 

Yet thei'e is no foundation wliatsoever 
for this declaration that they bitterly op- 
posed "tlie maintenance by Penn of re- 
ligious toleration towards Catholics." 

Take these facts as proof: 

Pennsylvania was tiie only colony ex- 
cept Maryland from which Papists were 
not excluded from the first hour of their 
settlement. After 1G92, it was the only 
colony that did not prohibit the public 
exercise of the Catholic religion, and for 
forty years prior to that time our Re- 
ligion was not free even in Maryland. It 
was. indeed, a haven from oppression, 
and a Catholic even from the Catholic- 
founded colony of Maryland, was con- 
sidered as having reached an asylum or 
sanctuary when within Pennsylvania's 
borders, for in April, 1690, Cap. Goode, 
writing to Jocob Leisler, of New York, 
about two, whom he describes as 
"strangers. Irishmen and Papists," says, 



"they made their escape tov/ards Penn- 
sylvania." 

There is not a sign to show that the 
Quakers during Penn's time here, or 
when he was in England, or after his 
death, at any time "bitterly opposed" 
Catholics practising their religion. 

On the contrary, quite the reverse. The 
complaint to England about the Mass of 
1708 amounted to nothing injurious to 
Catholics. They were here, they came 
and went, as did otliers. Priests visited 
them regularly, and the founder of the 
little chapel of St. Joseph's is tradition- 
ally related to have come to this city in 
the garb of a Quaker. Perhaps so. It 
was that of Friends in truth, and he 
could be safe at any rate. 

But after Father Greaton concluded to 
build a little chapel, and, if we take our 
Catholic school history as correct, among 
those who "bitterly opposed" his presence 
where did he build? Why, of all places 
in our city, the one he would have 
avoided if that charge were true — right 
beside the Quaker Almshouse, back of 
Walnut Street. That alone is proof of 
the utmost cordiality and friendship ex- 
isting between the two peoples, and there 
are people yet living who remember the 
passage-way between the two. And 
when in July, 1734, Governor Patrick 
Gordon informed iiis Council that a house 
lately built in Walnut Street had been 
set apart for the exercise of the Roman 
Catholic religion, where several persons 
resorted on Sundays to hear Mass openly 
celebrated by a Popish priest," and he 
thought "the public exercise of that re- 
ligion contrary to the laws of England." 
on what grounds did the forty or less 
Catholics maintain their-right to freely 
and publicly exercise their religion? 
That they had a right to do so by "the 
Charter of Privileges granted to this 
Government by the late honorable pro- 
prietor." 

The laws of England were against them 
but they appealed to the Charter of Penn. 
Governor Gordon was not a Quaker. It 
was to a Quaker document Catholics ap- 
pealed, and they were not molested. To 
show still further, and perhaps more 



TT 



YY iiiiam rervn^ 



clearly, that this lesson taught our Catho- 
lic children that Penn's followers bitterly 
opposed llie religious toleration of Catho- 
lics, is founded on error, let me cite tlie 
testimony afforded by a letter in the 
London Magazine and Mmithltf Clironolo- 
qer, dated July 7, 1737, and which may 
be examined at tlie Kidgway liibrary. 
Charges are made against the Quakers: 
a correspondent endorses tliem and adds, 
"■A. small specimen of a notable event 
which the people of that profession iiave 
taken towards the propagation of Popery 
in Pennsylvania. Let the Quakeis deny 
it if they can. In the town of Philadel- 
phia is a public Popish chapel where that 
religion has free and open exercise, and 
all the superstitious rites of that Churcli 
are as avowedly performed as those of 
the Church of England are in the Royal 
chapel of St. James'; and this chapel is 
not only open upon fasts and festivals, 
but is so all day and every clay of the 
year, and exceedingly frequented at all 
hours either for public or private devo- 
tions, though it is fullest at those times 
when the meeting-house of the men of 
St. Omers is tlinnest, and vice-versa." 
And one hundred and fifty years after- 
wards on tlie same spot is a chapel, not 
only open on fasts and festivals, but is 
so all day and every day in the week, and 
frequented at all hours either for public 
or private devotions— dear St. Josepli's. 
''The men of St. Omers," you will re- 
member, is intended as a stigma on the 
Quakers as being "Papists," from the 
Catholic College of St. Omers, in France, 

The correspondent continues, '-that 
these are truths you may be satisfied of 
by inquiry of any trader or gentleman 
who has been there within a few years." 

And we know it was the truth, and it 
remained the solitary instance, until the 
Revolution, of a Catholic chapel in all the 
British Provinces, so much so that Rev. 
McSparran, writing from Narragansett, 
R. I., in 1752, to a friend in England, 
mentions the fact that in Pliiladclpliia 
there was then a Popish chapel, tlie only 
one in the British Provinces, At this 
very time, though the Provincial laws 
permitted only "Protestants to hold 



lands for the erection of churches, 
schools or hospitals," as Dr. Stillee states 
in his very valuable "Test Laws in Pro- 
vincial Pennsylvania," yet the title of 
the ground on which St. Jos<'i)irs Chapel 
stood, was tiien in the name of Rev. 
Robert Molyneux, and so recorded, as 
the recently discovered brief of title 
now in the MSS. department of the Ameri- 
can Catholic Historical Society, shows. 

During all this time the (Quakers were 
in power, and during this time Catholics 
freely, publicly and unmolested, had all 
the public exercises of their religion as 
to-day, and nowhere is there a trace of a 
cause for instilling in the minds of our 
children that Penn's followers "bitterly 
opposed" them. 

Everywhere throughout the Province 
the friendship existing between Quakers 
and "Papists" was known. Even the 
street ballads prove this, as witness the 
following lines from "A Poor Man's Ad- 
vice to His Neighbor. A Ballad. New 
York, 1774: 

'•I've Papists known, riglit honest men, 
Alas! what shame and pity! 
Ah! how unlike the vartus I'enn, 
To drive them from our city." 

And seventy years before that from 
Maryland came the report to the Loudon 
Society for Propacjating the Gospel. ' 'Pop- 
ish priests and Quakers equally obstruct a 
good progress." [First Report 1703.] 

Not only had Penn and his people in 
England to suffer as "Papists," but in 
this country even, down to the heat of 
the Revolutionary War, Catholic titles, 
opprobiously applied, were used to stig- 
matize the Quakers. The bigot, John 
Adams, who on October 9th, 1774, ac- 
companied AVashington to Vespeis, 
could at once write his wife about "the 
poor wretches fingering their beads, 
chanting I.,atin, not one word of which 
they understood, their Pater Nosters and 
Ave Marias— iheir holy water, their 
crossing themselves perpetually — every- 
thing to charm and bewitch the simple 
and ignorant"— could also on September 
8th, 177G, write : "We have been obliged 
to humble the pride of some Jesuits who 
call themselves Quakers." 



the Friend of Catholics. 



Many additional facts on tlie same 
line of consideration which I am present- 
ing might be offered if my time or your 
patience permitted. 

Nor do I enter upon the civil disabili- 
ties under which Catholics were, though 
not by name, debarred from public office, 
had any been aspiring or deemed wortiiy 
of official distinction. This has been 
fully and accurately shown by Dr. Stille 
in his rpcent Paper before the Pennsyl- 
vania Historical Society. The very pro- 
duction of so learned and historically ac- 
curate an Essay proves tlie opportuneness 
of our Society, as it was an encourage- 
ment to our members. The spectacle is 
at this time presented of a Protestant 
showing the civil disabilities Penn al 
lowed (and for a time sanctioned to be 
imposed upon Catholics), and tluis lessen- 
ing his reputation as a fr-end to civil 
Liberty while I, a Catholic strive to prove 
him to my fellow Catholics as one who 
did not oppress Catholics in their religious 
rights. 

But if historical research be now again 
directed to William Penn, let ire be just 
in our judgment. He was a man pro- 
claiming a principle the world was not 
then disposed to receive, and we must be 
careful not to judge his acts by the spirit 



of to-day. Civil and religious liberty is 
now the professed and statute declared 
principle, but we Catiiolics know, never- 
theless, that in both do we suffer because 
of our faith. 

Pennsylvania alone tolerated tlie Mass?, 
thougli many thought it a "scandal" 
and idolatrous. To-day, thougli our 
State's Constitution declares every man's 
conscience to be unmolested, yet puljlicof- 
flcials, not Quakers, consider tlie 
Mass a scandal and deny it to our bretli- 
ren in faith, thougli unfortunate they be. 

Can we be harsh in judgment even if, 
in ont instance only, it sliall be proven 
he used but the commonplace language 
of the time, though to our modern ears 
it sounds so harslily? Yet officers of our 
municip il institutions rigiit in tlie city of 
Penn— the American Sanctuary, as one 
hundred and eiglity years ago it was 
called — deride llie claim ot Catholics 
to equal and exact justice. Not only is 
tlie Cromwellian order of "No Mass" 
given, but a basei- crime than CromwelTs 
is committed, and Catholics are forced 
to attend a religimis worship hostile to 
their faith— and Catholics rebuke Penn's 
followers that he once, if at all, simply 
spoke unkindly, while this deed of infa- 
my against men's consciences awakens 
but little concern among us. No follow- 
er of Penn now ])erpetrates this crime; 
"the hot Church" party and lenegades 
to our failh, and not "the men of St. 
Oraers," live again to-day, right in the 
City of Penn, once the only home of our 
faith in the English Provinces. 



i£ii>r*t^£Z^^'W^ 



[Copy of Signature of the firet known riiiladelphia Convert to Catholicity.] 



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